Seventeen years ago, during the fictional Jed Bartlet administration on The West Wing, a new formula for poverty was introduced. The problem: under the new formula, there will be 4 million new poor people. “Four million people became poor on the president’s watch?” exclaimed Toby Ziegler. Sam Seaborn retorts, “They didn’t become poor; they were poor already.”

Therein lies the problem with the federal poverty threshold. Administratively, it makes sense to have a clear line. If you’re below it, you’re considered to be in poverty, and if you’re above it, you’re not. But we know things aren’t really that simple. And although most policy experts agree that the threshold is too low, it is politically unpopular to drastically change the measure, because who wants to be responsible for more poor people?

To learn about how poverty is impacting your county, be sure to check out our County Fact Sheets.

Since releasing our latest County Fact Sheets, the most common question I’ve been asked has been about how Community Solutions measures poverty. The answer is, we report poverty according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s poverty threshold, but we try to put it in as much context as possible.

The more one digs into the poverty threshold, the more nuanced and problematic things become. The poverty threshold is a measure of gross income. Noncash government benefits (such as SNAP, housing subsidies and tax credits) are not counted as income, but Social Security income and cash public assistance both are. The poverty threshold is used by the U.S. Census Bureau to determine how many residents are in poverty, but is not sensitive to varying costs of living in different parts of the country. To complicate matters further, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) uses a separate but similar measure of poverty, known as poverty guidelines, or the federal poverty level (FPL), to make benefits eligibility determinations.

Most policy experts agree that the threshold is too low, it is politically unpopular to drastically change the measure, because who wants to be responsible for more poor people?

One of the reasons we included the “Poverty in perspective” section in our County Fact Sheets was to show that even people who are living well above the poverty threshold may not be earning a living wage. For families and individuals in that “in-between” space, it can be challenging to make ends meet, because they may earn too much to qualify for government benefits, but not enough to afford all of their expenses.

We also report on the number of residents living in “deep poverty” (under 50 percent of the poverty threshold) and living “in or near poverty” (under 200% of poverty). These numbers help to further contextualize the breadth and severity of economic insecurity in communities around the state.

The poverty threshold is used by the U.S. Census Bureau to determine how many residents are in poverty, but is not sensitive to varying costs of living in different parts of the country.

Community Solutions recognizes that current methods of measuring poverty are flawed, but until government changes their definitions, we’ll work with what we have. To learn about how poverty is impacting your county, be sure to check out our County Fact Sheets.